EXCERPT from “The Freelance Mariachi”

Grown men who have discovered their métier should not live with their parents, but in the freelance mariachi’s case financial straits had forced the issue. In their small, two-room apartment, the freelance mariachi’s parents had one room; his father’s portable cooler, refrigeration devices, and ice implements were in the other. His father was an ice salesman. —from “The Freelance Mariachi” in The Literary Review, Spring 2016

EXCERPT from “The Treehouse”

She’s in a swivel chair, green robe, telling me the toast is burnt. I offer to scrape the too-toasted surface in the trash, but she points out how this will affect the texture, how the toast, when bitten, will be thin and insubstantial. She writes ‘burnt toast’ on a list of things I’ve not done right, after ‘Too many raisins in oatmeal’ and ‘Did not properly fold newspaper.’ —from “The Treehouse” in TriQuarterly, Summer 2012